summercomfort (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
summercomfort) wrote2006-10-01 12:47 am
summercomfort) wrote2006-10-01 12:47 am
(no subject)
STEP started again this week. More work, but also more fun, because, truth be told, I do like the academic environment.
Also odd about this week was that I fell into a trap. I overheard on the jas-officers mailing list that Ouran High School Host Club featured a crossdressing girl, so naturally I went to investigate. Thankfully, youtube had all the episodes, which means I don't even have to BitTorrent.
It's... fun. I read some blog-summaries about how utterly hilarious it was, so I went in expecting KareKano, because that's pretty quality physical comedy as far as high school shoujo goes. But it turned out to be more of a FruBa in spirit than a KareKano, but with a modernized KareKano sense of humor. But yes, very FruBa-esque, in the "strong-willed girl finds self thrown in with bunch of boys, slowly opens them up through her acceptance of everyone" thing. Except with less shoujo-flower-background moments and more exaggerated-self-conscious-humor moments. Like KareKano, a lot of on-screen text and tags, physically impossible exaggerations, quick pacing, and similar location structure. The first dozen or so episodes are school-centered. In fact, most of it takes place in a single room, the host club room. Characters are established, funny things happen. It follows a general activity-of-the-episode thing as the Host Club goes to a resort, goes to a beach, etc etc.
Then summer vacation hits and suddenly we start to see the characters behind their club personalities, and it becomes these character-background-of-the-episode type things. Finally comes back to school again and there's a very awesome finale.
Things I liked:
- detail consistency. Haruhi's love for freebies, Instant Coffee, etc. So consistent that it almost becomes character development. Sometimes frivolous details even become important in later episodes
- excellent finale! Not as dramatic as the Giant Robo final episode, but still pretty awesome, just the way all the things came together.
- recap episode.... is interesting. Not as cool as Nadesico, but it's a recap done with all new animation, and as a dream sequence parody of Alice in Wonderland. Which includes character development
- the main character is chill. Maybe this is the new style of anime heroines, but she's just chill with everything.
- episode progression. It's kinda like wading slowly into the middle of the pool. No sudden transitions or hit-over-head-ness. Except for maybe episode 25, which I'd compare to the equivalent episode in FruBa in terms of sudden-reveal-of-angst, but is resolved with fewer shoujo monologues.
- equal character treatment. It's really an ensemble cast in the sense that you know the characters equally well, and even episodes that focus on one character will still develop the other characters. Of course, they use the "show bits of a flashback until you see the whole thing" technique, which is kinda like series-long strip-tease, but that's all right with me.
- practical treatment of crossdressing. As in, not a big deal's made out of it.
I guess, in summary, good anime, FruBa done in KareKano style, very silly, but not laugh-out-loud hilarious. Not transcendent, but new-school fun.
Also odd about this week was that I fell into a trap. I overheard on the jas-officers mailing list that Ouran High School Host Club featured a crossdressing girl, so naturally I went to investigate. Thankfully, youtube had all the episodes, which means I don't even have to BitTorrent.
It's... fun. I read some blog-summaries about how utterly hilarious it was, so I went in expecting KareKano, because that's pretty quality physical comedy as far as high school shoujo goes. But it turned out to be more of a FruBa in spirit than a KareKano, but with a modernized KareKano sense of humor. But yes, very FruBa-esque, in the "strong-willed girl finds self thrown in with bunch of boys, slowly opens them up through her acceptance of everyone" thing. Except with less shoujo-flower-background moments and more exaggerated-self-conscious-humor moments. Like KareKano, a lot of on-screen text and tags, physically impossible exaggerations, quick pacing, and similar location structure. The first dozen or so episodes are school-centered. In fact, most of it takes place in a single room, the host club room. Characters are established, funny things happen. It follows a general activity-of-the-episode thing as the Host Club goes to a resort, goes to a beach, etc etc.
Then summer vacation hits and suddenly we start to see the characters behind their club personalities, and it becomes these character-background-of-the-episode type things. Finally comes back to school again and there's a very awesome finale.
Things I liked:
- detail consistency. Haruhi's love for freebies, Instant Coffee, etc. So consistent that it almost becomes character development. Sometimes frivolous details even become important in later episodes
- excellent finale! Not as dramatic as the Giant Robo final episode, but still pretty awesome, just the way all the things came together.
- recap episode.... is interesting. Not as cool as Nadesico, but it's a recap done with all new animation, and as a dream sequence parody of Alice in Wonderland. Which includes character development
- the main character is chill. Maybe this is the new style of anime heroines, but she's just chill with everything.
- episode progression. It's kinda like wading slowly into the middle of the pool. No sudden transitions or hit-over-head-ness. Except for maybe episode 25, which I'd compare to the equivalent episode in FruBa in terms of sudden-reveal-of-angst, but is resolved with fewer shoujo monologues.
- equal character treatment. It's really an ensemble cast in the sense that you know the characters equally well, and even episodes that focus on one character will still develop the other characters. Of course, they use the "show bits of a flashback until you see the whole thing" technique, which is kinda like series-long strip-tease, but that's all right with me.
- practical treatment of crossdressing. As in, not a big deal's made out of it.
I guess, in summary, good anime, FruBa done in KareKano style, very silly, but not laugh-out-loud hilarious. Not transcendent, but new-school fun.
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Although I can see a lot of the other two as well, mostly KareKano in some timing and the onscreen text, and Fruba in art style...
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